It is a great honor to announce that our joint research team—consisting of Professor Masaki Fukushima, his student Wataru Aiura (a second-year master’s student), and Masanori Yamada—has been awarded the Grand Prize at the Learning Innovation Grand Prix for our childcare VR system. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all the judges. Thank you very much. I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to the teachers and students at Fukuoka Municipal Fukuoka Girls’ High School who have been using the system, as well as the Fukuoka City Board of Education for their ongoing support.
Award Recipient: Kyushu University Fukushima-Yamada Joint Research Team (Masaki Fukushima, Wataru Aiura, Masanori Yamada), VR-based Childcare Skill Development System with Multimodal Data Feedback
Professor Fukushima conducts research on VR, MR, and XR development across various scenarios. He is a member of the Smart Learning Design Research Unit, which I established within the Digital Society Creation Research Division of the DX Promotion Headquarters, and we work together on developing VR, MR, and XR for educational purposes. The project that received this award focuses on VR/MR designed to support the acquisition of picture book reading skills in childcare.
Due to my long-standing joint research with the Fukuoka City Board of Education on the utilization of educational data, I have been visiting Fukuoka Municipal Fukuoka Girls’ High School, where we have been exploring potential collaborations. Fukuoka Girls’ High School is a vocational high school where every department has its own unique strengths and engages in fascinating educational practices. After discussing various topics with the teachers in the specialized departments, we identified a significant challenge in childcare: the instruction of picture book reading. We decided to proceed with discussions on how to utilize VR/MR to address this issue.
Reading picture books is truly profound and difficult! Because it requires significant time for instruction and is a mandatory activity during childcare internships, this system is designed to support the acquisition of basic skills, improve readiness for internships, and provide feedback through evaluation, helping students become aware of key points to focus on. It is called “multimodal” because it provides feedback to learners based on data such as voice, gaze, and head orientation (used to estimate body angle). Professor Fukushima and his student, Mr. Aiura, are responsible for the development. They have created something truly wonderful. I was responsible for the design from an educational perspective, as well as the formulation of evaluation methods and the evaluation itself. While we have primarily focused on formative evaluation so far, we recently had all students in the class use the system.
This is a truly fascinating research project. We have presented it at international conferences in the past, where we received very positive feedback from international attendees and engaged in productive discussions.
I will not be able to attend the award ceremony (I will be presenting on the formative evaluation of this childcare VR at the ICALT 2025 international conference that same week!!), and it is a pity that I cannot see the award ceremony in person. Encouraged by this award, we will continue to develop this project further and provide better learning opportunities for students. Thank you very much. We look forward to advancing our discussions further. We are receiving tremendous support from Fukuoka Girls’ High School, which is incredibly helpful. Thank you.
